After French Criticism, Washington Drops Payment Demand

By

David Gauthier-Villars in Paris and

Adam Entous in Washington

Updated Jan. 20, 2013 9:17 p.m. ET

France is increasingly upset by what it sees as limited Obama administration support for the war it is waging in Mali against al Qaeda militants, including an initial U.S. demand, since dropped, that Paris foot the bill for any Air Force transport flights, French officials said.

After the French went public with their complaints over the weekend, the Pentagon yielded on one of them, saying Sunday night that it would not seek reimbursement from Paris for the flights.

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However, the unusually harsh criticism from Paris underscored the longtime U.S. ally's growing frustration with the U.S. commitment to the Mali mission.

The U.S. is providing "invaluable" intelligence-gathering help for the Mali campaign, the French officials said. But the U.S. has yet to decide on whether to agree to France's request for U.S. planes to refuel French fighters in flight, they said. France has a small fleet of aging refueling tankers and says more are needed to maintain the tempo of air operations in remote Mali.

France also has asked the U.S. to send additional manned and unmanned surveillance planes to spy on rebel communications, but the White House so far hasn't responded to that request either.

Obama administration officials have said they support the French campaign but want to get a clear picture of the mission and the rebels being targeted in French strikes before providing more assistance.

A spokesman for French President François Hollande said "joint intelligence-gathering efforts and the sharing of information with the U.S. was essential" to the Mali campaign and the broader attempt at defeating militants spread across the vast Sahara desert. He declined to comment further.

The French officials say they understand that the U.S. may be reluctant to engage in another war, just as it is winding down the 11-year-old war in Afghanistan. Still, they said France expects the U.S. to do more to fight militants who have vowed to hit at Western interests and conducted an attack in Algeria that left at least 23 hostages dead, including at least one American citizen.

The French officials said they were particularly "perplexed" last week when the U.S. agreed to provide limited airlift assistance but insisted on getting reimbursed for the costs. U.S. and French officials said the U.S. estimated the bill for up to 30 cargo flights would come to between $17 million and $19 million.

Other countries including Canada have offered to transport French military equipment and troops to Mali free of charge, according to French, European and Canadian officials. As a result, France is considering not using the U.S. proposal for flights between Europe and Africa, the French officials said.

Instead, Paris is considering relaying the U.S. airlift offer to West African countries, which are struggling to deploy their own troops to Mali.

"Of course, we'd expect the U.S. to provide the service for free to our African partners," one French official said.

On Sunday night, after the French complaints were published, Pentagon spokesman George Little told The Wall Street Journal: "We are not asking the French for compensation."

The Wall Street Journal first reported the U.S. demand for reimbursement for the transport flights last week. At the time, Obama administration officials defended the decision to bill the French, saying such arrangements aren't out of ordinary. They said U.S. taxpayers, after more than a decade of war, now expected Europeans to pay their share of the costs for security. Though the dollar amounts for flights to Africa are small, U.S. officials said the Pentagon is under tremendous pressure from the White House and Congress to rein in spending.

France engaged its troops in Mali on Jan. 11 to help a weak Malian army repel the southern progression of Islamic militants, who control the northern half of the African country.

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